The Words That Other People Say
by tiltedsyllogism
Summary: College, they tell you, is when you figure out who you are and what you're doing. This is the year that Trish goes to college and Jessica doesn't, and each of them tries to hold onto the other as best she can.


Jessica slumped back against the sticky plastic of the seat and stared through her own reflection at the world outside. Fields, warehouses, telephone poles, dark against a white-glaring sky: she stared at them until her eyes hurt and they turned into violet shadows of themselves. But they flicked by, on even beats, just the same as if she hadn't been looking.

She jerked her gaze back into the train car, just to feel the vertiginous lurch in her brain. Her eyes adjusted to the dark interior – black blodges receding to tangible geometry – and fixed on the ticket in front of her, peppered with holes. When had the conductor come through? She hadn't been paying attention. The punch-holes were shaped like little lima beans instead of being round. Well. That was a thing that she did. If she hadn't gotten on the train today, if she hadn't paid for that ticket, it would still be on a pad of paper in Penn Station instead of tucked into a seat-back ticket-clamp with weird-shaped holes bitten into it.

So that was something. She still existed, even if it didn't always feel like it. Here was proof.

Trish was supposed to be at Stanford, lounging on the grass in shorts and eating oranges or whatever you did in California. They probably still had oranges in November. But Trish had cried and ripped up her acceptance card, because she suddenly figured out that Jessica wouldn't be going with her, and picked a girls' school in Philadelphia instead. _Women's college,_ corrected Trish's voice in her head. Trish had seemed happy enough about it, in the end. She never mentioned Stanford again. If there had been more tears, Jessica hadn't seen them.

More proof that Jessica was real after all. Sometimes, she punched holes in things.

 _Only two hours by train,_ Trish had said. _Come anytime. If you miss me,_ with that bitchy little smirk that felt like something Jessica had won. _If I feel like it_ , Jessica had said. It had been funny at the time. But now the weekend yawned in front of her, blank and unknown, and she couldn't remember what laughing felt like.

She was the proof this time, sitting on this train. Trish had gone to Bryn Mawr because she wanted Jessica to come see her. And Jessica had gotten her shit together and finally stopped being disappointing and was sitting on a train in fucking New Jersey. She looked out at the fields, and saw her own face, smiling a little. Two hours wasn't so bad.

Trish was waiting on the platform. She threw her arms around Jessica and hugged her, hard, until the man behind Jessica cleared his throat in irritation.

"Sorry." Trish dropped her hand to Jessica's and tugged her away from the train door. "Campus is just over that way. Do you want to..."

"Sure. Wait, hang on a sec." The evening air was chilly and grass-damp, and Jessica pulled on her sweatshirt before re-shouldering her bag.

"How's work?" Trish asked, as they walked.

"S'all right. You know." Trish had never been to the store where Jessica worked - she had been hired only a month ago - but New York bodegas were basically all the same.

"Is it- okay, I know it's mostly just making change. But do you get interesting people, or..."

"Trish, I promise, there is absolutely nothing interesting about my job. I can't even steal cigarettes, they keep track of all the inventory." She paused to hitch up her bag as it slid down her shoulder (super strength didn't fix everything) and grinned at Trish. "But hey, it keeps me off the streets."

Trish smiled back. "That's something."

They turned a corner and cut diagonally across a wide, tree-sprinkled lawn. There was nobody else around - not up close, not even in the distance. It was so quiet, in between bird calls like tiny silver needles, that Jessica could hear the hushing sound of the moisture sloughing off their shoes as they walked. It was freaking her out a little.

"Where is everybody?"

"Most people are in for the night. Dinner was over an hour ago."

"It's like eight o'clock."

Trish shrugged. "No real reason to be out."

"So you just, like, go to sleep in your pods or whatever..."

Trish rolled her eyes. "They're studying, Jess. There's a lot of work to do." She laughed as Jessica rolled her eyes right back. "Or they're hanging out with friends. Everyone's got friends in their dorm."

"You know that's weird, right?"

Trish made a big deal out of waving and saying hi to some girl who was walking by instead of answering. Jessica ignored them.

"So where's your dorm with all your friends in it?" Jessica asked, once the Rare Outdoor Sighting was over.

"It's just up ahead. Like another minute and a half. Do you want to meet some of them?"

"Yeah, okay." They were walking on flagstones now, but Jessica's toes were wet, soaked through the crack in her boot.

"Really. It's just past the, um," Trish ducked her head, "archway."

"You have got to be kidding me."

Trish gave a helpless little nod and jerked her head forward, and there it was, a goddamn archway with fucking stone lions in front of it, and fairy tale street lamps stretching on the other side, marking an avenue of tall, still trees and more buildings like castles. What the hell was this place? Jessica felt an acute pang of homesickness for her apartment on 44th, which was shitty and too small but which at least didn't make her ashamed when she walked in.

"Come on, we're almost there," said Trish, as if she hadn't noticed Jessica having a meltdown in her brain. "My roommate Kate said you can use her bed. Her boyfriend goes to Penn, and she stays there all the time anyway on weekends."

One more lawn, past some big trees, and then Trish was pulling her keys out. Trish's dorm looked less like a castle than the rest of campus, though it still looked like one of those manor houses that everyone in _Pride and Prejudice_ lived in. Trish unlocked the door and held it open for her, and it was basically the same on the inside. There was a sort of living room that opened off to the right, where there were a couple of girls sitting around in armchairs, talking over a television nobody was watching. One of them jumped up and trotted over, smiling.

"Hey, Trish. Is this the friend you were talking about?"

"Yeah. Jessica." Trish tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled shyly.

The girl had red hair and freckles, and a pretty smile if you cared about that kind of thing (and maybe Trish did, since she was being so weird all of a sudden) held out her hand to Jessica. "Hi, I'm Erin. I'm one of Trish's..." her eyes trickled over to Trish, and she smiled like they had some big secret. "...best friends?"

Trish smiled back and turned to Jessica, eyes warm with expectation. They were both looking at her. God, she hated it.

"Hi," she said, with a tight little wave. "Guess I'll be seeing you around, then." She grabbed her bag and set off down the hallway.

Behind her, she heard Trish making apologies. At least, she was saying something, and it was probably that, because it usually was. Jessica dropped her head and barreled ahead for another few steps before she realized she didn't know where she was going. She dropped to a slow trudge until Trish caught up with her.

"What," Jessica snapped.

Trish sighed. "Nothing. But my room's upstairs."

The anger disappeared, just as fast as it had come, the way it always did when it was Trish who ended up catching it in the face. "I just need a few minutes, okay? I've never- been to Hogwarts before."

Trish breathed a soft laugh. "Yeah, it takes some getting used to. Wait till you see where we're eating dinner tomorrow." She tugged at Jessica's sleeve. "C'mon, there's a back stair we can take."

The upstairs hall looked just like the first one, and Trish's room looked like she had ordered everything out of a catalogue called "College Dorm in the Movies." There were art posters on the walls, and a mini-fridge in the corner, and there was a big window looking out on the lawn, and two metal lanterns hanging on nails from the window frame. Jessica unhooked one and looked at it. There was an owl in the pane, a metal design against light blue glass.

"Careful, that one's Kate's. You can look at mine if you want."

Jessica hung Kate's lantern back on its nail, but did not reach for the other one. "Wow, you're really taking school spirit to the next level."

Trish gave that little half-laugh. "They gave it to me."

"What, it's like, some kind of prize? For being-" Jessica waved her hands like stupid pom-poms- "Patsy..."

Trish punched her in the arm. "They give them to everyone here."

Everyone. "Huh. Okay." Jessica dropped her satchel on the floor and flung herself down on the bench seat underneath the window. "Does everyone call you Trish, here?"

Trish raised her eyebrows in a way that told her that she hadn't come off casual like she'd hoped. "It's my _name_ ," she said. "It's not like I want to be Patsy forever."

"I know that," Jessica said, which was probably true. It felt like finding something in your room that you didn't remember putting in there but which matched everything else. She didn't like thinking about it.

"Not to change the subject or anything," she said, "but you got anything to eat to eat in that fridge?"

"Sorry, that's all Kate's. But I think I have some peanut butter sandwich crackers." She knelt down under her bed and pulled out a plastic bin that rattled with cellophane and the shifting of objects inside their packages. "Here's what's left," she said, tossing the box to Jessica. "They're kind of stale. I've also got Oreos, but I figure you're not that desperate."

"You and sandwiches. Okay." Jessica popped a little orange cracker in her mouth and nearly choked when somebody shrieked just outside the door. It was laughter, she realized half a second later - now there were three or four people laughing. She glanced over at Trish, who shrugged.

"Christ," said Jessica. "How do you get any sleep here?"

"You live in New York," said Trish.

 _You do, too_ , Jessica thought, _don't you_? Something was wrong, somewhere in there. Before she could work it out, someone knocked on the door.

"Just a minute," Trish called, without breaking eye contact.

Jessica raised her eyebrows. "So, that? Is _not_ like New York."

"It's just a couple of friends. I told them to come. I wanted them to meet you." Trish stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked at Jessica.

"Trish?" said the voice on the other side of the door. Trish didn't move.

Nothing had felt like a choice since she'd gotten off the train. Her toes were wet from their goddamn safari across the grass, and she was eating stale crackers because the only other thing was Jessica's least favorite kind of cookie ever, which is what Trish had bought for herself. Even Trish's lavender bedspread and stupid throw pillows, which had seemed familiar when Jessica walked in, now looked like they fit in better here than it had in her old room in the house in New York. But the door was still closed, and Trish was looking at Jessica the way she had when Jessica first said _fuck it, I'm not calling you Patsy._ Like she was the only person in the world.

She smiled at Trish. "Sure, let' em in." Trish smiled back, and Jessica was suddenly incandescently happy to be here, in this weird pretentious castle.

"You got any food?" she called out to the three girls who came in through the door: red-haired Erin and two others. Jessica sized them up quickly: one was tall, blond bob with blue streaks; she seemed okay. The other was round-faced, hair short and spiky, grinning like a loon on too much caffeine. Mixed bag.

"We brought Pringles and vodka," said Erin. "Barbecue."

At least somebody on this hallway had good taste. "Barbecue Pringles? Give' em here." She smiled at Erin, who smiled back cautiously and tossed her the can.

"Yeah, not barbecue vodka!" said Spiky-Hair, who laughed like this wasn't her first booze encounter of the evening.

"I would've brought wine, but this was all I had left," said Erin apologetically.

"No, but like, that would actually be really interesting," said Blue Hair. "Did you know that in Russia they've got all these flavors of vodka that are, like..."

Jessica crunched a chip as Erin and Blue Hair sat on the bed and Spiky-Hair flopped in the far desk chair. Trish folded herself into the near desk chair and smiled absently at her friends, but her eyes were on Jessica, intent. Jessica kept her own eyes on Blue Hair, pretending not to see Trish studying her.

"I'd totally drink cranberry vodka," Jessica said, breaking in. "But in the meantime, unless you have some..."

All three other girls laughed, Blue Hair took a swig and passed her the bottle, and Jessica could see Trish relax, minutely. Jessica could definitely fit in for a night with a bunch of white girls from the suburbs (she'd lived with Trish, after all.) Especially since there was booze. She felt the vodka burn a path down her throat and tried not to think about the next two days.

Jessica missed the train out of Philadelphia, which meant that she missed her connecting train in New Jersey on the way back, which meant she was more than half an hour late to work, because if she was going to be late she might as well get some dinner that wasn't one of those goddamn pre-wrapped sandwiches from the cold case at work.

"I'm going to complain to Mr. Nawabi," snapped Pete, which is what he usually said when Jessica had the shift after his. But it turned out he meant it this time, so Jessica wound up with a warning and a full slate of overnight shifts, because it was that or nothing. But a shitty job was still better than having to look for a new job, so after that Jessica showed up promptly at 10pm Wednesday through Sunday, and on Monday morning she went back to her cruddy apartment and smoked whatever cigarettes she had left, and thought about that wasted hour at 30th Street Station and wished she had just held it until Trenton.

She didn't think much about the weekend preceding that incredibly expensive trip to the bathroom, because there was no reason to. It was fine. Things with Trish were fine. Her friends were okay. In addition to Emma (blue hair) and Margot (annoying) and Erin, she'd met Nora and Priya and Alexis and Amal, which sort of ruined her white-people theory but otherwise was fine. She'd had a bunch of meals for free, because apparently Trish knew everybody so it was easy to get Jessica into the dining halls without paying. So Jessica had sat, at long tables and round tables, with a bunch of other girls and with Trish, and listened to them talk and laugh and argue about other people they knew, or books they were reading. Jessica couldn't always tell which.

It had been fine. Everyone had been nice enough. But now she'd seen it, so there was no reason to go back. It was practically December, anyhow. Trish would be back in New York in a couple of weeks.

Jessica went to work and tried not to count days.

She usually ended up turning on the sound on the television around 2am. There was a point in the shift when inventory was done for the night and nobody had been in the store for like half an hour, and it got harder not to think about things. The new magazines came in on Thursdays, and those were good for a couple of hours, but on the other days she needed something else. The TV was supposed to be kept on mute at all times - Mr. Nawabi had ideas about how the Golden Apex was a nicer kind of market - but she always turned the sound back off by the time the morning rush picked up. And nobody who comes into a quickie-mart at 3am to buy Gatorade and pork rinds had much of a right to complain about anything.

She had seen this episode of _Golden Girls_ , so she wasn't really paying attention until a newscaster's voice cut through the laugh track. She looked up at the screen. A fake-looking woman was standing in front of a night-time street scene.

"At least three other cars were involved in the wreck, piling up behind the semi after it spun out. At least three are confirmed dead, including a nine-year-old boy. Five others are in critical condition, and have been rushed-"

Jessica changed the channel.

Some man was imploring her to call the number on her screen now, but the ad was nearly over, so Jessica resigned herself to never knowing what amazing opportunity she had missed. Then the show came back: some sort of sitcom, a teenage girl's bedroom. Jessica recognized the room before she recognized the red-headed girl sitting on the bed, because she and Philip had watched _It's Patsy_ together after school whenever her parents had forced her to babysit him. The girl with the red hair was strange to her now, because she was a cotton-candy TV character but she had the same face as someone else - someone who had only begun to matter when the days of watching TV with Philip were already over and she could never get them back.

God, what the fuck was she doing? Jessica turned off the volume so that she didn't have to listen to Trish pretend to talk on the phone in her syrupy Patsy-voice. She looked at the clock: 2:26. Pretty fucking late. Well, Jessica hadn't called for like three fucking weeks, so that was pretty late, too. She grabbed a few quarters out of the change tray on the counter, went out to the pay phone booth that stood in front of Golden Apex, and dialed Trish's number.

"Jess." A pause. Trish was happy, and angry, and worried, and confused, and maybe a little wary too. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I..." Jessica's throat locked up, and she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I haven't called. Before. Things have been... weird. But I..."

"Jessica, are you okay?" Trish said, into the silence.

"Yeah, I just... I miss you."

"I miss you too."

The line hummed between them, marking time,and Jessica laughed. "Fucking hell, I hate the phone. I just want to see you in person."

"That's one of the things I wanted to tell you" - Trish's tone took on a sharp edge - "once you called. Since I can't call you."

"Sorry," Jessica muttered, because she was, finally, even though it was kind of too late.

"I wish you would just get a phone line installed in your apartment."

"Too expensive," Jessica mumbled. "Besides, you're the only one who would call, it's not like..."

"Jess," Trish broke in abruptly. "I'm not coming to New York this weekend."

"Okay." Jessica wasn't sure why this was news.

"I'm going home with Brianne for Thanksgiving, she grew up in King of Prussia and a couple of us are going."

Thanksgiving. Jessica had completely forgotten. Also Brianne. Had she even met Brianne?

"Oh," she said.

"But I don't want you to be alone," said Trish, in her concerned voice. It was like a kaleidoscope, Jessica thought: all the colors and shapes of Trish's feelings had been there, in those first few words, and now they were shifting through all of the different parts, one by one. "I'm sure you could come too, I can ask..."

"That's... that's okay. I hate turkey. I just..."

"You hate turkey? Since when?"

"Since today, okay?" Jessica had no idea who Brianne was, and even though it was probably just another suburb, the idea of going somewhere called Prussia sort of freaked her out. "Look, can I just - can I come and see you? I know the timing is shitty, and it's not..."

"Jess, it's fine. I do still have to go to class - at least for tomorrow, a lot of profs are canceling after that. But you can, I don't know, stay in my room, or go to the library, or just..."

"That's cool," Jessica broke in. "I'll just come late in the day. It'll give me some time to sleep first."

"Which train? You have to tell me which train. I don't... I want to meet you at the right time."

"The, uh..." the line beeped. "Shit, hang on." Jessica dug in her pocket and fed another quarter into the phone's coin slot. "Okay, sorry. Whatever train gets in around seven thirty."

"It's a little earlier than that."

Jessica remembered that, actually, from the last time. Trish was so fucking pedantic sometimes. Jessica smiled into the phone. "Good to know. But that's the one. I'll be there."

"Great." Jessica could hear Trish smile back. "I'll be there too. But Jess?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still pissed at you for not calling."

"I know." She breathed in deep. "I'll try to be better. Anyhow. See you tomorrow."

"Today, actually."

"Whatever. You're such a priss."

"Goodnight."

Jessica replaced the receiver and pressed her forehead against the glass wall of the phone booth. That was gross, but it was okay, she would wash her face when she got home. She would wash her face, and nap, and then she'd get on a train to Penn Station and see Trish for the first time in like three weeks.

Some guy had walked into the store while she stood there, glued to the scungy phone booth, so Jessica pulled herself together and went back in to stand behind the counter. She stared down at the shift calendar taped to the counter top and worked back through her run of evening shifts to the day she had left Philadelphia late, the day she had gotten in trouble, the last day she had seen Trish. It was three weeks exactly. It turned out she had been counting, after all.

"Kate still got that boyfriend from Penn?" Jessica asked, as she dumped her bag on the bed.

"Nope, she's dating a Swattie now." Jessica didn't know what that meant, but conveniently, she also didn't care, as long as Kate wasn't here. "I haven't met him. Priya has, though - they were both at this soccer party last weekend, because they're both on the team. Priya the thought he seemed like a good guy, although..."

"Whoa, okay, whoa." Jessica put her hands on Trish's shoulders. "I really don't need to know all that."

Trish ducked her head in concession.

"Anyhow," Jessica said, dropping her arms. "It seems like an awful lot of work for a cover story." Trish frowned in confusion. "Since we both know that you've really got this room to yourself."

"I do not!" Trish put her hands on her hips. "Freshwomen..."

" _Freshwomen_ ," Jessica sneered.

"Freshwoman don't get singles. Except in this one dorm, but it looks like a prison. I didn't want to live there." She dropped into the desk chair. "Oh wait, you've been there. Remember that big cement building where we had brunch?"

"Yeah, I think so." Jessica flopped down next to her bag. "Anyhow, forget Kate. I want you to tell me about the important stuff."

Trish dropped into one of the desk chairs and wrapped her arms around the chair back. "Okay, what's important?"

"I dunno, tell me about what you're reading for class."

"Really?"

"I want to know."

"It's actually really interesting. I'm taking this one class on French feminism, and we just read this amazing article that argues that women can't use language in the same way as men, because it was developed by men who had all these biases against women and female bodies. So if women want to be able to, you know, express themselves, they have to develop their own kind of writing, and use their bodies to, like, expand their..." she waved her hands as if searching. "Vocabularies? I didn't totally understand that part. But so, like, in order to fight it, we have to develop this new way..."

Trish's face was alight, the way it always was when she was excited about something. It was part of what had made her show so good. Well, good according to some people. _See, Jessie,_ Philip had said once, pointing at the screen, _not caring doesn't make you cool. It makes you_ _lame,_ he had said. _Actually, dork, it's this show that's lame_ , Jessica had replied, almost. But she hadn't, because even then - even before she knew what would happen a few months later - she hadn't wanted to extinguish the brightness in his face. It was different when you saw it in someone you cared about. You didn't want it to go out.

"You really aren't paying attention, are you?"

Jessica didn't feel like explaining what she had been paying attention to. "No, I – I do care. Tell me."

"You're stalling. You just don't want to go hang out with Nora and Erin."

"Are we..." Jessica groaned. "God, they don't give up, do they?"

"I really want them to get to know you. And they're both a lot of fun."

So it was Trish's idea. Again. Jessica pushed the thought away. "Will there be wine?"

Trish shrugged. "There'll be something."

Jessica stood up. "Let's go now. I'm pretty sure the stuff you're saying will make more sense when I'm drunk."

It turned out that Nora and Erin wanted to go to Amal's room, which was in another dorm, because apparently Amal was having some people over too. There were about seven people when they got there, so Jessica staked out a bottle of wine for herself and sat with her back against the dresser and watched. Trish was almost instantly absorbed in a discussion with a blue-haired girl (a different one). Erin smiled and waved but didn't come over. Jessica sat by herself and tried to ignore the feeling that everybody was watching her out of the corner of their eyes.

After about fifteen minutes, a tall blond girl came and sat next to her. "Hi, I'm Sam," she said. "Are you Trish's friend from New York?"

"That's me," said Jessica.

"I wanted to say hi," said Sam, sitting down, "but also-" her voice dropped low "-I needed an excuse to get away from Margot."

"Pull up some floor," said Jessica, patting the ground next to her. "That bitch is super-annoying."

"Oh my god, sometimes I want to _punch her,_ " Sam said, loudly, then glanced back over her shoulder - but the whole room was loud, and nobody seemed to have noticed."

Jessica laughed. "You and I are going to get along." She held out her bottle of wine to Sam. "So who else sucks? I have some guesses of my own, but you live here, you're the expert."

Sam ran out of steam around the time they finished the bottle. "I mean, the thing is," she said, "is, is that, I just love everybody. I love everybody here. They're, like. They get on my nerves, but it's like."

Jessica took the bottle back and poured the last few drops down her throat. "Yeah, I get it," she said. "It's like." She looked over at Trish, who was standing with two other girls who were talking loudly to each other while Trish's eyes wandered around the room. Jessica caught her attention and jerked her head at the door.

"I think we're going," she said to Sam. "Nice to meet you."

Sam insisted on hugging her goodbye, and then she and Trish walked out and closed the door on the party, and the quiet of the hallway wrapped them up pressing back against the small current of sound that still bled through the door. Jessica let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

Trish led her back through the maze of hallways and out into the night air. It was even colder than when they had walked over, and she and Trish both jammed their hands in their pockets.

"So," Trish said. "You and Sam got along like a house on fire."

Jessica shrugged. "We were just talking shit."

"I figured."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Jessica watching the light of passing lamps diffuse in the white puff of her breath in front of her.

"So did you have a good time?" Jessica asked, as Trish fiddled with her keys on the steps of her dorm.

"Yeah, it was alright." Trish pulled the door open in its wide arc and held it for her. "Do you want to go right to bed, or stay up for a bit?"

"I can stay up." Her voice came out low; the hallway was quiet here, too, but the silence felt more brittle. "I mean, I've barely talked to you."

"Sorry," said Trish. "But hey, it's only like eleven. I don't have class until 1:30 tomorrow, and I don't even really have to go."

"But you want to go."

"I want to spend time with you." Trish unlocked the door to her room and pushed it open, and smiled at Jessica. "We can talk all night if you want."

Jessica took off her boots and sat down on Trish's bed and hugged one of the throw pillows to her chest. Trish put on a CD (some sort of thing with guitars and women singing) and then arranged her pillows in a little pile, and draped herself over it so that she was half-facing Jessica.

"So," Jessica said. "Truth time."

"Okay." Trish bit her lip.

"I don't believe your roommate exists. Admit it, they gave you a single."

They both burst out laughing. "Seriously, Jess," said Trish, when she had her breath back. "Why?"

"You just don't want to be special."

Trish's face became serious. "Special's fine. I just don't want to be... famous. I just want to be... god, it sounds so stupid to say 'I just want to be me.' I don't even know who that is. I just... I want to figure out who I am, and just... just be that. You know?"

"Yeah." It was obviously the thing to say, but underneath Jessica felt a little unsettled. Ever since Trish came out of rehab, she had been poised and grounded - not like she was in the studio or at press events, but in a way that seemed to come from inside. It had felt like something for Jessica to hold onto. This was different, and she didn't like it.

"I don't know if you- you're so good at it already, Jess."

Jessica laughed dryly. "Not really."

"No, you are!"

Jessica snorted. "I'm a fucking cashier at a quickie mart."

Trish pushed her hair back. "Yeah, but that's not who you are, it's just what you're doing right now."

But that was the problem, Jessica thought. Thinking about the future didn't help, because all she had was a long forward stretch of right-nows turning into other right-nows. "I don't know," she said. "Aren't they kind of the same thing? You're reading Siss..."

"...Cixous..."

"Yeah sure, and that's-it's part of who you are now." Jessica's whole body felt heavy, all the dullness of her life pressing in on her from four sides, not only space but time. "So maybe I am, like, cigarettes and lottery tickets."

Trish opened her mouth and then closed it again, just looked at Jessica sadly, and reached out and took her hand.

"Not just that," she said firmly.

"I know," said Jessica, though she didn't. "Just maybe right now."

The song ended, and the CD player clicked and whirred. Jessica felt herself relax when Massive Attack came on. She had given Trish this CD for her seventeenth birthday. She looked at Trish, who smiled at her sleepily and squeezed her hand. Jessica suddenly felt pleasantly tired, and let her mind drift on the chords of the familiar song.

Jessica started awake as Trish pulled her hand away.

Jessica watched blearily as Trish slipped out the door. There was a different song on the CD player. Had she fallen asleep? Her feet, which were hanging off the edge of the bed, were tingling. She folded them up underneath herself. She felt her eyes fall closed, and lay there bleakly until the door clicked a few minutes later.

"Where'd you go?" Jessica asked. The consonants were a struggle.

"Just to the bathroom," answered Trish, all crisp edges.

Jessica yawned deeply. "You're chipper."

"At least one of us can hold her liquor." She sat down right next to Jessica, grabbing the pillow and bundling it beneath her as she curled up. She looked mischievous but also shy and hesitant. "So you want to know about something else I've learned?"

Jessica closed her eyes. Now that she was more awake, she was so, so tired. It was easier listening if she didn't also have to look at things. "Yeah, okay."

She felt the bed shift beneath her. A brief touch of Trish's hand on her cheek was a split-second signal, and then Trish's mouth was on hers, warm and soft. Jessica froze.

"Oh my god." Trish's voice was a bare gasp, so quiet Jessica could hardly hear the words, though she felt them against her lips in a soft puff of air. "Oh my god, I'm sorry." And then Trish pulled back and began to crumple in on herself on the far end of the bed, curling around the pillow.

"No!" Jessica's brain finally unstuck itself, and she reached out and grabbed Trish's arm. "No, I mean - it's good. It's good. I was just... I was surprised." Trish was staring down at her hands, ignoring Jessica's hand on her arm. Her hair was falling around her face as she curled in on herself.

"Trish. C'mon." Jessica scooted sideways until she was right next to Trish, and pushed Trish's hair behind her ear. Trish slid her eyes up toward Jessica, her face a tangle of expressions.

There was only one right answer, only one thing that didn't mean fucking everything up. Jessica lifted her other hand to Trish's cheek and turned her jaw gently so their mouths could meet.

Trish's mouth was gentle, but Jessica could feel the eagerness in Trish's hands as they smoothed over her face. It was going to be okay, she hadn't ruined it. Trish moaned softly as she slid her hands up and into Jessica's hair, tangling her fingers and pulling Jessica closer as she bit at her lips. Jessica kissed her back, trying to turn off the part of her mind that was thinking about the music in the background, the weird shadows that fell through the window from the lamps outside, the whisper in her head saying _what am I doing,_ and moved her hand to stroke through Trish's hair. She had never done this before, never kissed someone like her, soft mouth and smooth skin and long hair. Hell, she had never kissed someone she _liked._ She wasn't sure she liked it.

Trish pulled back to look at her and smiled, devilish. Jessica smiled back, because she always did when Trish made that face. Trish bit her lip, still grinning, and suddenly she was straddling Jessica and rocking her hips downward as she lunged for Jessica's mouth.

"Ow, Trish, ow!" Trish pulled up short, and Jessica wrenched her right hand out from underneath Trish's left knee, where it had been pinned.

"Oh, shit, sorry," Trish said, trying to move her own hair out of her face. She slid back down next to Jessica. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry."

"It's fine." Jessica rolled her wrist and spread her fingers experimentally. "No big. I've got another hand."

Trish looked like she was trying to smile, so Jessica reached across herself and touched Trish's cheek with her un-squashed hand. "Hey, it's fine. Let's just sleep for awhile, okay? I'm exhausted, and you know I'm a klutz when I'm tired."

"That's true." Trish smiled back, touching her hand to Jessica's hand on her cheek. "Do you..." her eyes dropped, as if she were looking for the words she wanted. "Do you want to, I mean, if you..."

Trish's anxiety felt like needles in Jessica's lungs. "It's fine," she said, rubbing her thumb in circles on Trish's cheek.

"You'll sleep here?" Trish asked.

 _Where else would I sleep?_ Jessica wondered, before she realized that Trish meant her own bed. That probably would have been a dumb thing to say out loud anyhow. So instead she said only: "yeah."

Trish pulled Jessica's hand over to her mouth and kissed the palm. "Let's get under the covers, then, I'm cold."

Jessica was cold, too. The bed felt awfully narrow as she climbed in next to Trish, but she was bone-tired. She curled up on her side, facing the room, and Trish snuggled up next to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. Jessica fell asleep to the quiet thrum of more guitar music and the feeling of Trish's hand moving gently over her hurt wrist.

Jessica awoke slowly, confused by the warm press at her back. The room was suffused with dim blue light, and the CD player had fallen quiet.

Behind her, Trish sighed, still deep in sleep, and Jessica remembered.

One thing she was sure of was that she really had to take a piss. She dropped her feet to the floor and padded down the hall to the bathroom. It was one of those institutional bathrooms with a huge mirror on the wall over the sinks, but Jessica kept her eyes down. She didn't feel like looking at herself just now.

She was careful to close the door quietly, in case Trish was still sleeping. The world outside the window had gotten lighter and Trish's hair gleamed gold from across the room. Jessica came closer. Trish had rolled to the center of the bed, her long hair spread around her like somebody had arranged it that way. She somehow always looked that way, though: so goddamn perfect. _Star quality,_ Dorothy had always said, and that cunt had been wrong about a lot of things, but she was right about this. Trish was going to conquer the world, shining all the way.

Jessica felt despair pinch at her chest. She had been there to help Trish get away from Dorothy, away from Patsy. She had sat with her through rehab, and moved with her into the new apartment on the upper west side after Trish had gotten herself legally emancipated. She only left that apartment last fall, when Trish did, because it was stupid for Trish to be paying that kind of rent when she was going to school in a different time zone ("Not actually a different time zone, Jess," Trish had told her, and okay that was true but whatever, it was still far enough away that paying rent was stupid) and Jessica hadn't wanted to be a dead weight.

But you couldn't get away from what you were. Jessica should have known that already, but somehow she didn't, until she learned it again looking down at Trish shining in her own bed at her own college in her own new life, where she belonged and Jessica didn't.

Trish hummed and stirred and opened her eyes. "Hey," she said. "What are you doing up there?" Without waiting for an answer, she stretched like a cat.

Jessica sat down on the edge of the bed, and Trish curled toward her, sinuous and smiling. "So." Her smile turned devilish. "Time to finish what we started?"

Jessica pulled her feet up and slipped them under the covers, and then wriggled until she had her head on the pillow. Trish smiled at her, a hopeful little half-smile, and Jessica's throat was hurting at the sight of it, and the next thing she knew they were kissing, Trish rolling on top of her and stroking her tongue along Jessica's lips, running her finger along the shell of her ear. Jessica's mouth kissed her, and her hands ran along Trish's sides, and meanwhile her brain lurched along a few seconds behind everything else, trying to clean up all the mental filing cabinets that were exploding.

Trish dipped down and began mouthing along Jessica's neck. Jessica's breath caught, and she lay there helpless as Trish brushed her fingertips lightly over the neckline of Jessica's tank top, down to her nipple.

"Fuck!" Jessica gasped. She hadn't meant to do that. She always thought it was bullshit when people shouted stuff in bed, but now she was shaking under Trish's fingers, Trish's tongue. Why had nobody ever touched her boobs before? Why had she never touched her own boobs? Whenever she'd had sex with boys, they'd mostly just grabbed her a couple times and squeezed before shoving into her. It had nothing to do with how she got off, whether that happened while the guy was fucking her or when she finished herself off afterward in the bathroom. But now the whole of her skin felt like one glowing fabric, shot through with tiny electric cords of sensation, each brush of Trish's mouth or fingertips lighting her up like a neon pipe.

Now Trish was above her on all fours, leaning down to kiss her, and Jessica reached up to stroke Trish's breasts. Trish gave a gratifying shiver, and Jessica shoved her tank top up so she could suck on Trish's right nipple, fingers gliding over the curve of her breast, feeling the textures of her skin. Trish moaned, her hips bucking, and Jessica felt a wild, incandescent rush. This was better than any drug she'd tried; this felt like jumping without having to come down.

She slid a hand down Trish's body, down to her crotch, and was startled by the hot wet patch between Trish's legs. The next second, she could smell it, the salty, ocean-like smell of Trish's arousal. The underwear was silky, close-fitting, unforgiving, so Jessica ripped them off, and Trish's laugh was choked off into a moan as Jessica caressed the wet curls of her labia. Jessica ran her fingers over curls and soft skin, watching Trish's face change like light on water, until her fingers found the opening of Trish's vagina, warm and sticky, and slipped inside.

"Oh my god, Jess." Trish's front half collapsed down, and she pressed her face into Jessica's shoulder as she pushed her hips back onto Jessica's hand. Instead of Trish's face to look at, Jessica had Trish's breath in her ear, coming in quick feathered gasps. Jessica moved her hand faster, sliding to the hilt of her palm and then out to the tip of her finger, and Trish arched up with a pained mewl, her face very red.

"Should I..."

"Keep going," Trish gasped, and slid a hand between her own legs. Jessica felt Trish tighten around her fingers, and squeeze, and then she cried out and convulsed and there was wetness sliding into Jessica's palm and down her wrist.

After her shivering slowed, Trish dropped down and curled up on her side next to Jessica, one hand sliding up her shirt as the other slipped under the waistband of her boxers. Was Trish going to touch her in the way that she had just - and of course she was, _that's what happens, you dumbshit_ came the voice from one corner of her mind, but the rest of her head was too scrambled to listen.

And then Trish was inside her, and it felt like the most obvious thing in the world but also like bashing her head against the sky itself, stars everywhere. She was rocking without even realizing it. Trish had pulled her tank top out of the way, and she was now dropping small kisses on Jessica's breasts, and it was amazing. Jessica felt her orgasm building, less like a punch and more like the sea. Trish's lips closed on Jessica's nipple, and suddenly Jessica was shaking and wailing as pleasure crashed through every inch of her, skin singing and fingertips bristling.

By the time Jessica felt like she could see straight out of her eyes again, the room was fully light. Jessica's stomach growled, and Trish laughed. "Breakfast should be open soon."

Jessica rubbed a hand over her face. "Holy shit, Trish, you..."

Trish giggled and bit her neck.

"No seriously." She rolled her neck side to side until it cracked. "That was _unreal._ How did you just, like, know where to, um, where to touch me?"

Trish grinned. "I've had some hookups. It's been very educational. Nothing long-term, though." She curled up and began playing with Jessica's fingers.

Jessica tried to shove down the dark feeling that had welled up in her stomach. What the fuck had she been expecting? She asked a question and Trish had answered it. If it felt like the wrong answer, maybe Jessica had just been thinking of the wrong question.

"Still with me?" Trish's hand on her cheek, her eyes playful.

Jessica turned to look at her, and whatever her face was doing made Trish fold up her eyebrows with worry and pull Jessica into her arms. It seemed stupid, except then Jessica was crying, and that was definitely stupider, so Trish was off the hook, she guessed.

"Hey, hey, Jess, it's okay." Trish patted her back, though it ended up being more like her armpit because that's where Trish's arm was caught. "I'm here. I know, that was really intense, but I'm here." Jessica hugged her back, because she was already crying and there was nothing to lost. A moment later Trish coughed and pushed at her arms. "Jess, Jess, I can't breathe, okay?"

"Sorry," Jessica said, letting go with a half laugh. Trish lay back a moment then looked over at Jessica, brimful with affection.

"You," she said, "of all people, have to be careful!" Then she saw Jessica's face and leaned closer to gather her in. "Because you're _special,_ " she said. "Because you're _amazing._ You just have to be gentle with normal people."

Jessica couldn't say anything, and buried her head in the crook of Trish's neck.

"It's fine." Trish murmured, stroking her hair. "You're fine. I'm here."

 _For now,_ Jessica thought, and gave one last tight squeeze.

There had been an influx of customers around 1am, but now there were only two: a droopy-faced man with weird-shaped ears who had spent several minutes studying the refrigerated drinks, and a sullen-looking teenager with a buzzcut lurking around the magazines. Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry, so Jessica turned on the TV volume and ignored them.

At last the bearded guy came up to the counter to buy a bottle of vitamin water. "Why there is no dragonfruit?" he said testily.

"We're out. Two sixteen."

"Two days ago was none. Still none."

"Sorry," she said, not meaning it, and the best thing about this job was that nobody expected her to.

The door jingled as Droopy Man left, taking his second-choice water with him, and suddenly the teenager was right in front of Jessica, clutching a single stick of beef jerky.

"'Sthat it?" She asked. He was older than she had realized, maybe a few years older than she was.

In reply, he slapped the beef jerky down on the counter, giving her a clear view of the swastika on his arm.

"Nice tattoo," she said evenly. "That'll be one sixty-eight."

He stared at her another moment, then pulled a handgun from the pocket of his coat and pointed it at her.

"Everything in the register," he said.

Jessica was not scared, she discovered. She had grown up watching her grandfather shoot pigeons when they went out to the cabin in the summers, and she had hated the violence of it, the stupid waste, the way he strutted a little every time he hit one. But that wasn't the same as being scared, which was probably what you were supposed to feel when the gun was actually pointed at you.

She didn't know what it would have been like, to be back in an ordinary body, staring down the barrel of a loud noise that could end your life. It probably could end hers, too; it took a lot more to hurt than it used to, and she healed quickly, but a shot to the head would probably still kill her. It was hard to know. She was sort of curious.

"I said everything in the register!" the kid yelled. She was still thinking of him as a kid. He sounded a little hysterical. Maybe this was his first holdup.

"There's video surveillance here," she said, slowly.

"Just give me the fucking money!" he yelled, pushing the gun closer.

She could have knocked the gun out of his hand, or taken it from him and crumpled it up like tinfoil. It was almost as appealing as finding out if her body could take a bullet, with the added bonus of not being painful. But it wouldn't just be her word against some punk skinhead, because everything that happened would be on camera. It might as well be the whole world watching.

"Sorry," she said. "You scared me, is all." She opened the drawer, piled the packets of bills into a plastic bag, and pushed it across the counter. "Thank you for shopping at Golden Apex."

He stared at her in confusion for a few seconds, then grabbed the money and took off, the door slamming behind him. Jessica gave it ten seconds and then followed him out.

Hell's Kitchen was mostly quiet at this hour on a weeknight — thick silence floating over a backdrop of the faraway hum of the expressways — and she could pick up the faint slap of his sneakers on the pavement the next block over, small flickers puncturing the stillness of the quiet streets. It all felt stupidly easy.

One jump landed her about ten feet in front of him. He drew up short, cursing under his breath, and started to run toward a side street, but Jessica had tackled him before he had three feet and socked him in the jaw.

He tried to fight back, but the stupid kid didn't even know how to throw a punch. She kind of felt bad for him, until she remembered his tattoo and gave him a couple of extra punches, even after he had stopped struggling.

"Let me tell you a secret," she said, leaning in close to his bloodied face. "I wasn't actually scared."

The kid let out a faint groan.

"I'll take that as an apology," she said, as she clambered up and took the plastic bag from his hand. "Thank you, come again!"

She checked her watch. It was 2:07. That gave her six hours to get the money into the safe and come up with a story.

 _I was really upset,_ she imagined herself telling Mr. Nawabi. _I just had to take a walk afterward. Just around the block. It seemed too late to call the cops by the time it was over. I'm so sorry, I panicked._ she glanced down at the bag of cash on her arm. _Yes, I'd just made a deposit into the safe, there was only $40 in the till. Wasn't that lucky? I only gave him the bag because he asked for it._  
There was close to $300 in the bag slung over her wrist — a lot of people had paid in cash that night, and Jessica was usually lazy about making deposits. But the safe was hidden in a small compartment just under the camera. She would definitely be able to get it in there without the camera picking it up.

It was all going to be fine.

Forty-five minutes later, Jessica paused in the middle of filling out the safe deposit form. They were supposed to leave $40 in the drawer. She ripped open the envelope and started a new one so that the numbers would be right.

 _It has to look like a real deposit,_ she told herself. It still felt uncomfortably like stealing, putting that money in her own pocket. She'd been tempted, occasionally, but she'd never really been going to steal — but now she was doing the same thing as that shrimpy little punk, down to the dollar amount he will be officially blamed for taking. She guessed it was her Freak's Fee: compensation for staying out of the world's line of sight.

Trish's Christmas present to Jessica was two weeks in the Florida Keys and two months rent, so that Jessica could quit her job at the Golden Apex without worrying.

"It's too much," Jessica said helplessly, when she read the card, sitting on an embroidered couch in some big fancy room on campus Trish had taken her to.

"It's the only thing that's _enough._ " Trish took her hand. "It won't be much of a vacation for me, if you're not there. I want you to come with me, and I know you can't otherwise."

"Okay. Well, thanks." Jessica looked down at the carpet, tracing its scroll patterns with her foot. "I didn't get you anything." There was this heart-shaped locket, on display in the window of the pawn shop Jessica passed on her way to work, and Jessica had kept stopping to look at it. The store was always closed when she went by, of course, and in the end Jessica never made it during open hours. Trish didn't need any more jewelry, really. She could buy herself nicer things than this.

"You're coming with me." Trish leaned in and squeezed her arm. "That's your present. Okay?"

"Yeah." Jessica touched her hand to Trish's. "So when do we leave? Your last final is next Tuesday, right?"

"Yeah, but there's this dorm thing on Friday, and then a couple of people are staying through the weekend and hanging out." Trish sat back on her bed and grabbed the notebook she used for planning things. "I got us plane tickets for Monday out of JFK. They're early, but we can stay in an airport hotel the night before. Do you want to? I'll book it."

"Okay, that sounds good." Jessica hadn't stayed in a hotel since Trish was in rehab. "So should I come back down here on Friday, or do you want..."

"That's okay, I'll just meet you at the hotel on Sunday." She looked up from her notebook. "Does that work?"

"Yeah, that's great." Jessica did the math in her head: an extra six shifts before she quit meant almost five hundred dollars more. That was a good thing. She could always use the money.

On their third-to-last day - two days after Jessica had noticed the events calendar on the wall at the resort and had reluctantly begun counting down - she didn't even go into the ocean. They took a lunchtime cruise, and then took a nap, and when they finally got to the beach, Jessica discovered she didn't feel like swimming. Instead, she just strolled up and down the shore, feeling the dry shift of sand under her feet and the dazzling smack of sun on her skin. Trish had gone straight for the water, and then retreated up the beach to a bank of lounge chairs to dry off and sun herself.

The resort beach was about three quarters of a mile, sprinkled with other people and striped with rows of lounge chairs like the one Trish had claimed. Jessica walked the whole thing twice before flopping down next in the empty chair next to where Trish was stretched out, legs crossed and one foot bobbing lightly.

"You must be tired," Trish said, over the edge of a magazine and under the brim of a floppy hat. "Walking on sand is hard work."

Trish looked like she belonged in a picture in the magazine she was holding. Jessica grinned at her, sun-drugged and blissful.

"M'good," she said. "Great. Working off lunch."

Trish laughed and passed her a bottle of iced tea from her tote bag. Jessica had sort of forgotten about drinking, but thirst hit her sudden and powerful, and it was hard not to lick the condensation off the bottle in the half-second it took to twist off the lid. The tea was cold and fresh, and she finished the bottle in less than a minute.

"Glad I brought that," Trish said mildly.

"Thanks," said Jessica.

"No problem."

"No, really, I mean." Jessica twisted her hair up off her shoulders and let it fall again. "This whole trip is... it's great. It's great. I'm just... thanks."

"Sure thing," said Trish. "It's nice when you let me do things for you."

"Yeah, well." Jessica shrugged. "Where else am I going to get luxury handouts, if not from you?"

Trish snorted. "Oh, please."

"Yeah, sorry, that was weird." Jessica laughed. "I guess it's not a handout if it's from your girlfriend."

Trish's face went very still. "Are you my girlfriend?" Her posture was still relaxed, her foot still bouncing gently, but something about her body had changed key.

Jessica shrugged, confused. "Yeah."

"You've just never... you've never said that before."

"Yeah, well." Jessica dropped her eyes fiddled with the ends of her hair. "We're sleeping together. You took me on vacation. I think it's safe to say that I'm your girlfriend."

"Okay." Trish seemed to rouse herself from whatever was happening in her head. "That's... okay."

Jessica was suddenly eager to leave the beach. "Hey, I'm hungry," she said. "Let's get dinner."

"Yeah, it's getting late." Trish stuffed her magazine into her tote bag and picked up the bottle where Jessica had let it fall between their chairs. "What about the Cuban place?"

"The one near the pier, or the one in the hotel?"

"The one on the pier, of course." Trish stood up. "They have those fried potato balls, remember? Come on, let's go."

"D'you think we could just stay here?" Jessica said, flopping out spread-eagled on the hotel bed. She was going to miss the beach, but the bed was probably a close second. It was huge, with big downy pillows and cool, soft sheets.

From the bathroom, Trish said something inaudible.

"What?"

Trish emerged, toothbrush in hand. "We still have two more nights after this."

Jessica flipped on the television and turned up the volume. "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

Trish rolled her eyes and went back into the bathroom. Jessica switched the TV back off and flung herself back onto the bed, just to feel the downy comforter puff up around her and begin to flatten out with a slow soundless exhale.

"Anyhow," said Trish, coming out of the bathroom, "I think you'd get bored."

Jessica propped up on one elbow to look at Trish, who was clearly crazy. "Are you kidding me?"

Trish clambered onto the bed and tucked up next to Jessica, golden head on Jessica's skinny shoulder. "I would."

Jessica picked up a loose lock of Trish's hair and twitched it between her fingers. "You're crazy."

Trish hummed at the feeling of Jessica's hands in her hair. "I might be." She reached up for Jessica's face and kissed her. "I'm definitely crazy about you."

Jessica broke away, laughing. "That is definitely the cheesiest thing I have ever heard."

Trish laughed too and pulled her close again. "I know." A small, light kiss to Jessica's mouth. "I'm unbearable."

"Totally." Jessica kissed her back, and then kept kissing her, because this was vacation, still, and she was with her girlfriend. She was still trying to figure out if it felt different, saying it that way, when Trish leaned in and licked the skin under her ear, and her mind foamed into blankness.

Trish kissed her under the ear again, afterward, when they were spooned up together under the pillowy cover. Jessica snuggled back into the crook of Trish's body and gave her arms a gentle squeeze. She was learning to be careful.

Trish squeezed her in turn. "That was good. I don't even think I'll have bruises tomorrow."

"Fuck you," Jessica murmured, feeling heavy with affection.

"Witty as always."

"Shut up. I thought you liked me the way I am."

"Mmm. So much." Trish squeezed her again. "So much. I love you so much, Jess."

It was so much like other things Trish had said that Jessica only noticed when Trish choked on her own breath. Trish hadn't meant to say that, but then she had, and now she was waiting, waiting to see what Jessica would do next. All of this, Jessica noticed in a split second: her brain had snapped awake, even as the rest of her tangled up in immobility, like in one of those dreams where you can't run. She could see everything, but she couldn't _do_ anything.

Jessica managed to push herself onto her other side and looked at Trish through the strange half-light of their hotel room, darkness stained yellow by the distant lights from the beach. Trish was looking at her with the same wounded-animal expression she had had on their last day at the old house, when Jessica had yelled at Dorothy before they left the house for the last time.

Her mouth wouldn't work, so she gathered Trish in her arms and squeezed.

"Ow!"

Jessica loosened her arms immediately. "Sorry, oh my god, sorry, are you okay? God, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Trish gently pried Jessica's arms off of her. "You don't have to say that anymore. C'mon, roll back over."

Jessica allowed Trish to prod her back toward the other wall, and wrap her arms around Jessica's waist once more. _Actually, I think I do._

Even the airport felt beachy and vacation-y, but it was still the airport. Jessica tried not to think about it. She curled up in her cushy first-class-waiting-lounge chair and stared at a little glassed-in botanical garden at the center of the lounge. Jessica recognized some of the plants she had seen around Key West, big and colorful, looking more like art than like plants.

"Good choice." Jessica had been tasked with finding them a place to sit while Trish had gotten them coffee from the lounge bar. "That's really gorgeous."

Jessica glumly accepted the coffee and did not reply.

"Don't look so grim," Trish said, taking the seat next to her. "We can always come back."

"Great," Jessica said. "I'll check flights for tomorrow."

"Nice try." Trish sipped her coffee. "Next time we come here, I'm going to have read a lot more Virginia Woolf."

Jessica unfolded and refolded herself in her chair so she could look at Trish more easily. "You definitely taking that class?"

"I definitely want to. I think I can. I'm going to tell the prof I want to minor in feminist and gender studies."

Jessica stirred her coffee and watched the milk unfurl. Trish never mixed it, because she knew Jessica liked that part. "I guess you're pretty excited to go back."

"I am." Trish nodded, smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. "You've missed New York, right?"

Jessica thought about the cornices of the old buildings, and the thick soup of city noise, and all the people who rushed down the street or hung around on street corners or yelled at plastic bags or whatever; all the people who felt kind of like friends, as long as she didn't have to talk to them. "Yeah," she conceded. "It'll be good to be home."

" _And_ -" Trish leaned in, smiling - "I expect my girlfriend to come and visit me."

Trish, Jessica realized with a dull sense of epiphany, had been waiting to tell her friends about this... this whatever-it-was that had started when Trish kissed her back in November. Jessica had successfully managed to avoid thinking about Trish's friends for most of the trip: it had been two weeks of just her and Trish, in a private little world filled with sunshine and no-one else. But now she felt a sense of sourness creeping in, and wondered when that crack in the shell of that private world had always been there.

"Of course I'll visit," she said, when she realized how long she'd been silent. She picked at the seam of her pants. "So are you gonna tell everyone?"

Trish's face went carefully blank. "Do you mind?"

Jessica dropped her feet to the floor. It felt like too much work to hold her legs up. "I just don't see why anyone cares."

Trish sighed, like she was explaining something simple. "It's not like that, Jess, it's more like a question of _how_ people care, when they know. I'm not talking about tabloid columnists. I mean my friends. I want them to know what it means when you come to visit me."

Jessica slouched further in her chair and folded her arms. "I'm not stupid, I get it." But really, she was stupid. She had been thinking of going back like it was the same thing: Trish was going back to work, to take her classes and get her major in feminist studies. Jessica was going back to work, to make some money and buy some time until she figured out what she was going to do next. But they weren't the same, at all.

Trish pushed her hair back from her face. "I'm sorry, Jess. I didn't mean it like that. I just-" she sighed - "I just want you to understand why it matters to me." She leaned forward and took Jessica's hand. "Why _you_ matter to me."

Jessica felt her insides go soft when Trish touched her, all the bad feelings sliding away. This is probably why we're girlfriends, she thought. She threaded her fingers through Trish's and swung their hands back and forth. "You just want to brag about getting laid," she said.

"I want to brag about getting laid by _you._ "

Jessica scoffed and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I don't think anyone at Bryn Mawr thinks that's much to brag about."

"They would if they knew you better." Jessica snorted, and Trish made a face. "Let me rephrase that. They _will, when_ they know you better."

Jessica picked up her coffee and sipped it. It was cold. She winced and set it down again. "Is that a promise or a threat?"

Trish sighed. "You just need to try a little harder, okay? You're... tough. Erin likes you, she's just kind of intimidated. And Priya and Beth are both really shy." _Who the hell is Beth?_ Jessica wondered. "I know Amal is hard to talk to, but she loves a lot of the same comic books you like, you just have to..."

"Okay, Trish, okay." Jessica pressed her forehead to her knees. "I'll work on it, I promise. Just, can we... can we not do this now?"

"Of course. No problem." Trish's voice was flat and even. "Do you want some more coffee?"

"No, I'm good," Jessica said to the inside of her knees.

Trish stood and made her way to the coffee counter. When she wasn't back five minutes later, Jessica looked up and saw Trish on the other side of the lounge, chatting with a well-dressed woman and a ten-year-old girl. It looked like maybe Trish was signing something for the kid, who looked like her head was about to explode with excitement. Jessica laughed to herself, wryly. _Of course._ It had only happened a couple of times on this whole trip; she guessed Trish was overdue.

She knew it made Trish uncomfortable when Jessica watched her with fans, so she flopped over and stared at the glassed-in garden again. The huge, bright leaves would have seemed unreal, if she hadn't just spent two weeks in a place where they grew like that, in pots or window boxes or straight out of the ground. Jessica stared at the still, bright array and wished she could climb inside.

Trish had made such a big deal about the word "girlfriend" that Jessica was nervous, the next time they walked into the dining hall together. It had always felt like everybody was watching her and waiting for her to make some dumb mistake. It was probably going to be worse now.

Instead, Erin sat down next to her and asked her about their trip to the Keys and listened like she really cared about what they ate and where they went walking, and Sam - who was on Erin's other side - told hilarious stories about her awful family Christmas, and on Jessica's other side Trish took her hand under the table once they were done eating and squeezed her fingers every time Jessica laughed.

"Better than you thought?" she asked, as they walked back to the dorm afterward.

"Yeah, I... I don't know what I was expecting, I guess." Jessica paused under a street lamp and fished her gloves out of her coat pocket. It was cold down here, in a different way than New York. "I guess I thought everyone would be staring at me the way they usually do. Now that they. Um."

Trish grinned. "Now that they know about us?"

"I guess." It didn't feel worth it to disagree when Jessica didn't even know for sure what was wrong.

"Everyone loves gossiping here." Trish shook her head, laughing. "It's less interesting now that it's out in the open. Nothing to speculate about anymore."

"So wait, everyone _already_ thought we were dating?"

Trish gave Jessica an amused glance. "Of course."

"Wait, so..." Every time Jessica thought she was finding her feet around this stupid place, something knocked her over again. "So what about the other girls you had sex with, before me?" Jessica could not entirely keep the venom out of her voice.

Trish just shrugged. "People experiment."

There wasn't a good answer to this that Jessica felt like saying out loud, so she pulled her scarf up to cover her nose and ears.

"Do you want some tea when we get back?" Trish asked. "You look cold."

Jessica shook her head. She was sick of tea. Everyone sat around after every single meal and drank tea for another half hour. Jessica already had to pee.

Trish drew closer and wove her arm through Jessica's. "I'll just have to warm you up another way."

Jessica grinned. Trish's innuendos were always super-corny, but Jessica kind of loved them. She sometimes wondered whether Trish was corny on purpose, to make her laugh.

"Sounds good," she said, as the dorm came into view.

It was their first time having sex since the last morning in Jessica's apartment, where Trish had stayed for two days before taking the train back to Philadelphia. They had been rushed, then - there were lots of trains, but Trish was anxious to get back to campus. This time, there was nowhere to go, and it had been weeks instead of hours. They didn't have to go fast anymore, the way they had the first couple times. This time, Trish undressed her slowly, and teased her with quiet touches and tiny kisses until Jessica was ragged and trembling, suppressing her moans so that Trish's neighbors wouldn't hear. When she finally came, heaving and shuddering, Trish was already sheened with sweat and breathing hard. Jessica was barely inside of her when Trish cried out softly, shaking, and pulled Jessica close.

"That was way better than tea," Jessica said a few minutes later, when they were both breathing normally again.

"Mmm. Agreed. That was fantastic." Trish curled closer and nuzzled at Jessica's ear, the way she liked to do after sex. "I love you so much, Jess."

She was supposed to say it back, she knew it. The knowledge sank like lead in her stomach. Why wasn't it enough that she felt it? She wanted to say something cutting, she wanted to cry or yell. More than anything, she wanted to run away, to curl up by herself and not have anyone expect anything of her.

Jessica looked over at Trish, whose eyes were open and bright, watching her. Trish held her gaze for a long minute, face unreadable. "All right then," Trish said softly, and rolled to her back.

"Trish, c'mon." Jessica propped herself up on her elbow and ran her hand up and down Trish's stomach. "It's not _that,_ I'm just not... I'm not good at, like..." She trailed off. "I mean, listen to me. I'm not good at saying things. But it's not that I... It's not like I don't..."

Trish reached up and touched her cheek. "Never mind," she said. "It's fine." She turned toward the wall, tugging on Jessica's arm until Jessica was spooned up against her. Jessica clamped down hard on the rising tears and hugged Trish gently, being careful not to squeeze too hard.

February was when Jessica broke down and started applying for waitressing jobs.

"The tips will make up for it," said the manager of The Friendly Diner, as he slid the tax forms across the table.

Jessica didn't think she would exactly be raking in the tips. But pointing that out to her new boss also seemed like a bad idea, so she took the job and as many shifts as they would give her. That left her twenty-eight hours - the end of breakfast on Tuesday until dinner on Wednesday - to travel down to Philadelphia.

"My social theory seminar is on Tuesday afternoons," said Trish. "It's only once a week."

"I guess that sucks for both of us," said Jessica, and hung up the phone.

Trish picked up right away when Jessica called ten minutes later, after a furious lap around the block and a second lap where she mostly felt stupid. "I'm sorry," she said, because Trish was too choked up to say much. "I'm sorry, I just- I really want to see you, okay?"

"I'm sorry too." Trish's voice was thick. It was also a shitty phone line; Jessica would have to remember the one across the street instead. "We'll make it work."

The line beeped, and Jessica dug fruitlessly in her pocket. "Shit, that was my last quarter. I have to go in a minute. Can I come today? My first training shift is Friday morning, we'd have a little time."

"Oh my gosh, of course," said Trish. "If it's before six I can't meet you, I've got my Virginia Woolf class, but I-" The line went dead.

Jessica replaced the received and started jogging toward home. She was pretty sure she remembered Trish saying that the English department had its own house; she could ask someone for directions. She could walk to campus from the Bryn Mawr train station with her eyes closed. She would meet Trish outside her class. It was going to be great.

Trish hadn't noticed when Jessica peeked into the classroom - she had been too intent on the professor, who was lecturing in the front of the room somewhere beyond Jessica's line of sight - and she didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave once the class was over. But her whole face lit up when she saw Jessica waiting for her.

"You came to meet me!" she crowed, clutching Jessica's hand.

Jessica blushed, feeling stupidly pleased. "It's no big deal."

"It is to me. This was a great surprise." Trish tugged on her hand, and they walked out of the house together, a few steps behind some of the other students. "Where do you want to go for dinner? Wherever you want."

"You're the local. What's the best four-star dining hall in this town?"

Trish laughed. "We can eat at Haffner. I don't think I've ever taken you there. The food is pretty good, but I don't really know anybody, which is why I never go."

"Wait, isn't it literally the exact same food wherever you go?"

Trish shrugged. "They make it differently different places. People say it's good. Like I said, I haven't been there much."

"That'd be nice, actually."

Haffner was the weird brick building on the edge of campus that Jessica had noticed a couple of times before, going to and from the train. Trish had to use one of her guest passes to get Jessica into the dining hall, but it was worth it to sit at a little two-person table - without her tray bumping into the corners of other people's trays - and look at Trish, and only Trish. For most of the meal, anyhow.

"Hey, Trish!"

A tall girl with straight dark hair came charging across the room to their table, trailing a skinny blond girl behind her.

"Alexis!" Trish was smiling in recognition. She turned to include the two of them. "Alexis, this is Jessica."

"Hi," said Alexis, like she didn't really care, which suited Jessica just fine. "Hey, did you get McCormick's email? It says we have to have our forms in by Friday, but..."

Jessica looked at the other girl, who smiled nervously at her. "I think it's about West Virginia," she said.

Jessica shrugged. She couldn't keep up with everything Trish was doing in her classes.

"So how's your work going?" the blond girl asked, because apparently that was a reasonable thing to say to total strangers, here.

"I don't go here," Jessica said automatically.

"Oh, sorry! Where do you go?"

Jessica stared at her. "I go to work."

The girl glanced nervously at her friend, who was still immersed in talking to Trish and ignoring the two of them. "So you're just visiting."

"Yep."

The other girl looked away. She seemed to have lost patience with Jessica, which perversely made Jessica like her more.

"So how about you?" Jessica asked. "What are your classes?"

The girl looked at her suspiciously for a minute before answering. "I've got bio, and French, and diff- two physics classes. I'm a physics major."

"Huh." Jessica was impressed despite herself. "That sounds hard."

The girl gave an exhausted half-laugh. "It's a _lot_ of problem sets. I'm basically just hanging on until spring break starts."

Jessica glanced over at Trish, still deep in conversation with this Alexis person.

"When's spring break?" she asked.

"Thirteen days. Not that I'm counting. I've got two midterms between now and then, and six..."

Jessica switched over to listening to Trish and Alexis. It wasn't like the other girl needed Jessica for her litany of pain anyhow.

"...drive the van," Alexis was saying, "but there need to be four registered drivers so we can rotate every three hours. Not like we have to, but that way we can say we are."

"Yeah, I can do that," Trish said, and Alexis was looking at her like every word she said was the most important thing that ever happened. "I don't have any moving violations. Do-"

"Trish," Jessica broke in. "I gotta go. Can we go back to the dorm?"

"In a few minutes, Jess," Trish said.

Jessica stood up. "Now," she said, pulling - gently, but still - on Trish's arm. "I have to. Pee."

"Fine, we'll - I'll see you later," Trish called, over her shoulder.

"I'll email you," said Alexis.

Jessica could feel Trish buzzing with silent frustration as they walked side by side through the falling dusk. Well, Jessica was annoyed too.

"So," Jessica said, as they passed under the archway. "I hear you have spring break plans."

Trish sighed. "I was going to tell you."

"When? It sounds like you're going, I don't know, next week."

"It's in two weeks. Jess... stop, okay?" Jessica stopped. Trish was a few feet behind her, standing under one of the lamps, holding out her hands. "It's not just a vacation. It's a service trip. It's through this organization. One of the community service groups on campus arranged it."

The lamplight on Trish's face made her eyelashes cast deep shadows. Jessica walked back to meet her. "What kind of service trip?"

Trish took Jessica's hands in hers. "Building houses for flood victims in West Virginia. It's not just some kind of fun vacation." She swung Jessica's hands back and forth. "I wouldn't do that without you."

Jessica swung their arms in and out so that their joined hands bumped against each other. "I didn't even know you had time off."

"I wasn't really thinking about it either, until I heard about this trip. But then it just seemed like such a great thing to do, you know? It was like I could do something really important."

Jessica dropped Trish's hands. "Thanks a whole fucking lot."

"Jess! I didn't mean it like _that._ I just... Look, can we go inside? I don't want to argue about this in front of everybody."

Jessica looked around. A couple of girls were standing around under the archway, talking; a few others were crossing the green ahead of them. Nobody within twenty feet. "Whatever." She turned without looking at Trish and walked toward the dorm, fuming.

"What I _meant_ was," said Trish, once they had closed the door to her room, "is that it's a chance to make a difference in somebody else's life. These people lost their homes over three years ago, and the federal relief money that was supposed to come their way never did, so they've been living in shelters, or even in _tents._ They're basically homeless. It's not right."

Jessica dropped onto the bed. She suddenly felt very tired. "Couldn't you just donate some money?"

"That kind of thing doesn't feel like enough anymore." Trish sat down next to her and took her hand. "It's just so distant, that way. I want to meet people, and do things with my own hands to help them." She sighed. "But it's also for me, not just for the people in West Virginia, or Alexis..."

"Why her?"

"She's the one who told me about the trip and talked me into going. But it's also for me. I think I have to do this, Jess."

Jessica looked down at their joined hands. "That's hard to argue with, I guess."

Trish rubbed Jessica's leg affectionately. "I'm going to miss you too, you know that. But there's still summer break. That's like four months." Jessica said nothing, and Trish pushed her hair back and sighed. "Please, can we not do this? I've got class in the morning, I can't hang out with you then." She gave Jessica that small, catlike smile, which was totally not playing fair. "There's not much time, so I just want us to... enjoy being together, you know?"

It was how she had felt for months, Jessica realized; there wasn't much time. Like a drumbeat that set the rhythm for every minute they were together. _Not much time. Not much time._

Trish was looking at her, face full of love and desire, and Jessica wanted every second of it that she still had.

She pushed Trish down and climbed on top of her, pinning her wrists down on the bed with one hand as she yanked up Trish's blouse. Trish thrashed a bit as if she were trying to get away, and Jessica's own desire rushed through her, leaving her shaky. Once her breath had returned, she dipped her head down to whisper in Trish's ear: "You're gonna be begging before we're done."

And she did, although not until she had licked and sucked Jessica through her own howling orgasm. Fuck the other people on the hall. It wasn't like they didn't know. Trish had screamed a few times before, on other nights, but never quite like this.

"Holy shit," Trish said, still sweating where she lay next to Jessica. "Maybe I should make you jealous more often."

"Yeah." Jessica rolled over and looked at the wall.

Jessica woke up feeling like something had gone stale in her chest. She was alone in Trish's room. She knew where she was, and her train wasn't for hours, and Trish was probably just in class, but it still took her nearly a minute to push down the panic.

She had to talk to Trish. Or maybe she just had to see her, because right now, for whatever stupid reason, she felt like that might never happen again.

Trish's schedule was on her desk, under the plastic slipcover of her desk organizer, color coded in marker. _CSEM, 9-10:30, TAYLOR 206._ That was the building with the clock, Jessica remembered. It was just across the green. She pulled on her clothes and headed out the door.

She found the room and hovered outside the door until Trish glanced her way.

"What the hell, Jess?" she whispered, quiet but fierce.

Jessica shrugged. "Well, you know, it worked the first time."

"Keep your voice down!" Trish hissed, and pulled her down the stairs. "Not cute, okay? This better be important."

The landing had a window that looked back across the green to Trish's dorm, with a big ledge that looked nice for sitting in. Jessica perched up against it. "I have to leave in a few hours, is all."

"I know that. I'm coming - I was going to go back to the room afterward to see you. Of course I was. Didn't you see the note? I left it on the desk."

Jessica hadn't seen it, of course, even when she was rifling around on the fucking desk, because that was the kind of idiot she was. "Fine. Well, I guess this was stupid, then."

Trish sighed. A trickle of the panicky feeling from earlier pushed Jessica to keep talking.

"I just don't like fighting with you," she said.

"Oh, Jess." Trish sat down next to her and pulled her close for a hug, then dropped back to touch Jessica's cheek. "It wasn't a fight."

Jessica frowned. "I'm pretty sure it was."

Trish shook her head. "It was just a misunderstanding. I said some thoughtless things. I'm sorry about that."

"But we didn't, like, fix things."

"It was a disagreement," Trish said firmly. She stood back up again. "There was nothing to fix."

Jessica shook her head. There was no point in arguing, if Trish was going to be like this. "Well okay then, I guess we're fine."

Trish smiled and leaned in to give her a quick peck on the cheek. "Great. I'll be back in the room after class. Someone else can let you back in. Do you have time for a quick lunch?"

"Sure." Jessica said, and Trish was up the stairs, on her way back into the classroom.

Jessica couldn't actually stay until after lunch, so Trish walked her to the Starbucks a few blocks past the train station. The heat seemed to be broken, but it was better than sitting at the train station in the wind, so they stayed.

"I hope your new job goes well," she said, as the two of them huddled over their coffee cups.

"Thanks." Jessica hated Starbucks, but at least it was making her appreciate the prospect of spending time at the diner, where you could drink less-shitty coffee and only pay 99 cents.

"And I'm sorry again about our disagreement earlier."

Jessica had almost forgotten, but now she was annoyed again. "I guess that's what we're calling it," said Jessica.

Trish looked at her earnestly. "I just think 'fight' is overstating it."

"All right then." Jessica took another sip of terrible burned overpriced coffee. "I'll keep that in mind for the next time that the US Army has a disagreement with Saddam Hussein, or..."

"That's not what I meant." Trish sighed in frustration. "The whole point of different words is so that you can distinguish..."

"God, Trish." Jessica was sick of it, suddenly, sick of Trish explaining everything to her like she was a goddamn kindergartner. "Why is it so important to have a name for everything? Why can't it just, you know, be what it is?"

Trish pursed her lips in frustration. "Because that's how you understand things. How are we supposed to know what it is if we don't even know what to call it?"

Jessica crossed her arms. That was total bullshit. She knew all the words, within six weeks of the accident, within six goddamn _days_ of accepting what had happened and who she was now. Mutant. Special. Enhanced. None of it changed what she could do, or what she had to do, the way she had to hide. It didn't help one fucking bit. Jessica grabbed at her own ribcage and squeezed her arms against her chest so that she wouldn't lose her temper and start yelling in this stupid fucking Starbucks that didn't even have a working heater.

"I mean, the world's such a messed-up place, I had no idea. There are all these big powerful systems that are putting us into little boxes to keep us from fighting back, from, from _noticing_ , even. It's like this uphill fight, all the time, just to describe everything in a way that shows what it's really like" - Trish's hand was clenching, Jessica noticed, though Trish didn't seem to realize it - "and how broken the world is. I mean, there are these laws, right, and you think they're there to protect you? But it's just, like, part of the panopticon..."

"The what?"

Trish waved her hand. "It doesn't matter, but it's like, the state is training all of us to watch each other, to punish each other, and it's like, it's not the law, but we think that it is, but really..."

 _I knew that already_ , she thought. _I couldn't have said any of it that way, but I knew_. Trish was getting caught up, digging around in her brain trying to remember whatever stupid book it was.

"I have to get my train," Jessica said abruptly.

Trish glanced up at the wall clock and then back at Jessica. "Are you sure? It's only..." she trailed off. "Okay. Okay, I'll walk you there."

They only managed one visit before Trish left for West Virginia: a day trip, because Trish had a midterm the next day and needed the evening to study. Jessica almost met Kate the roommate, who was apparently on a break with her boyfriend,

"Next time," said Trish, laughing.

"If she's not back together with him by then." Jessica still wasn't entirely convinced that Kate existed.

They had lunch with Trish's friends in the dining hall, then spent the afternoon at a coffeeshop so Trish could get some studying done, then missed dinner making out in the dorm living room before Jessica had to leave to catch her train.

"See you soon," Trish said, as she kissed Jessica goodbye.

But it wasn't soon. Trish went to West Virginia for nine days, and came back sick.

"You shouldn't come, Jess," she said, sounding even foggier than usual over the pay phone line. "You'd just get sick too."

And that was fine, except that Jessica wasn't allowed to come the next week, either.

"It's not that I don't want to see you," she said. "I just have this huge paper due Wednesday, I don't think I'll even be sleeping until then."

Jessica changed the phone handset to her other ear. "I can try to switch shifts."

Trish was quiet for a long minute. "It's not just the paper. I've got a lot of work this week. It's all the stuff I didn't do because I went to West Virginia. Next week, okay?"

"Okay." The phone was pinching her ear, so she moved it back to the other side. "Next week for sure."

"Of course."

The phone line beeped. Jessica had another quarter, but it didn't seem like they were saying much. Her throat felt thick.

"I miss you," she said at last.

"I miss you too. I really do. Next week, okay? I promise, you'll have my full attention."

"Okay." Jessica swallowed. "Trish, I..."

The phone went dead. Jessica replaced the receiver and hugged herself. She could make it through a week. It wasn't so long to wait.  
***

There were cherry blossoms everywhere, the day Jessica finally made it back to Bryn Mawr. Trish took her a different way onto campus, through the archway with all the owls in it, just so they could walk up an avenue lined with weeping cherry trees, each a different shade of pink.

"This is insane, Trish." Jessica reached out to brush her fingers over a trailing spray of flowers. "This is like a movie or something."

"Yeah, the whole campus looks amazing. Do you want to walk around after we drop off your bag?"

"I'm fine carrying it."

"Okay." Trish hesitated, like she was distracted. "You sure you don't want some tea, though?"

"Trish, I'm fine. Come on. Show me some flowers."

They strolled across the big green, which was covered with girls in sundresses reading or chatting in circles. Everyone waved at Trish as she walked by. There were fewer people down by the gym, but underneath the trees the hillside was covered in scatterings of blue wildflowers. They looped back uphill past a huge, rugged old tree that was covered in white blossoms, and Jessica waited while Trish stopped to talk to a pair of girls who were sitting in the lower branches.

"Where to now?" Jessica asked, after Trish rejoined her.

"D'you remember that little walled garden behind the library?"

Jessica frowned. "I think so. It had a pond, right?" The pond had been empty when Trish took her there, filled with dead leaves. But even surrounded by cold wind and bare trees, Jessica could tell that it was beautiful.

"That's the one. It's just up through here."

They ducked through a little doorway in the wall, and Jessica felt a shock of disorientation as the shapes in her memory burst into green. The scrubby square of lawn she remembered was covered with soft grass, and the bare branches were thick with leaves, closing in the garden on all sides. A couple of girls were sitting together on the edge of the pond, trailing their bare feet in the water. If it hadn't been for that, Jessica would have felt like she'd stepped into a fairy tale.

Trish and Jessica sat on a bench near the pond, and waved at the girls who were dunking their feet. Trish said nothing, but picked up a fallen leaf and traced her finger along the veins. Jessica watched her and listened to the chirping of the birds. After a few minutes the other girls left, carrying their shoes. Trish watched them go, then set down the leaf and turned to Jessica.

 _Here it is,_ Jessica thought. She hadn't realized she'd been waiting.

"Whatever it is, just spit it out," she said.

Trish opened her mouth and then closed it again. She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them.

"I'm not going back to New York this summer," she said.

"Are you angry at me?"

Trish looked up, surprised. "What? No."

Well, that was a relief. It wasn't about her. Jessica felt the tension go out of her, a knot that had been gathering between her shoulder blades during this whole walk when Trish wasn't saying anything.

"You're not coming back this summer," she repeated, just so she could hear it again.

"I'm staying here and working." Trish was staring at her hands again.

This didn't make any sense. Summer was in less than a month. Jessica had been counting down, waiting for this year to be over. She had to be misunderstanding something. Summer was when Trish would be twenty minutes away, or maybe even less, instead of three hours. She would have some shitty job too - or maybe no job, it wasn't like she needed the money - and Jessica would be able to see her every day.

"You're... working?"

Trish looked at her. "I'm working with ReliefAct this summer. The West Virginia group. They asked me to do an internship."

"That's great, Trish." Which it fucking wasn't, but Jessica wasn't making that mistake again. "That's really great. So are you coming home on weekends? Or..." Trish made an incredulous face. "Oh my God, you're staying here, aren't you."

"No, of course not -" Trish said, and Jessica felt better for a split second - "they close the campus for the summer. I'm getting an apartment at Haverford. Brianne and I are getting an apartment."

"Better hurry," Jessica snapped. "I hear the suburban real estate market is a real..."

"We signed a lease already."

Jessica went still. "When?"

Trish reached for her hand. "Jess..."

"When did you decide all this?" Jessica stood up and then sat back down again, because there wasn't anywhere to go. "It's been weeks, hasn't it? Why didn't you tell me?"

Trish leaned back, arms folded. "Maybe it's because I knew you would react like this."

"I just..." Jessica stopped and took a deep breath. She didn't want to yell, not in this secluded green pocket, which was the only part of this stupid campus that she didn't hate. "Why does it have to be here?"

"They're a small organization. This is their only office, other than a couple of field offices in the South. You don't want me to move there, do you?"

"Okay, but..." Jessica's hair was in her face. She pushed it away. "Are you telling me there isn't a single charity in New York that you could work for? I mean, for God's sake, you're Patsy, you could just pick up the phone and ask _anyone_ for..."

"Maybe that's not what I want," Trish said sharply. She bit her lip. "Sorry. It's just that I really _like_ ReliefAct. It's a really good organization."

Jessica slumped back on the bench. "So what are you going to be doing for them?"

Trish shrugged. "I think fundraising, mostly. They want me to build relationships with some potential big donors."

"Those people are probably mostly in New York anyway. Or in LA, but you can get on the phone from anywhere. Could you tell them you want to work from New York?"

Trish pursed her lips in frustration. "And what if I did? Where am I supposed to go, Jess? I don't want to deal with a sublet in New York, that's the biggest racket there is. Am I supposed to, what, move back in with Mom?"

"You could live with me."

Trish sighed. "Jess, your apartment is..."

Jessica's temper snapped. "Just say it, okay. It's a shithole. You're so used to living in a goddamn palace you can't even..."

"Stop, okay? Just stop. I was going to say that it's really small."

Jessica stared up into the trees and said nothing.

"Jess, don't do this. It's not that I don't want to, okay? But it's probably – it's probably not even safe for me. I can't... I'm not like you. I'm not strong. I can't just walk around in the meatpacking district at all hours..."

"It's in Hell's Kitchen," Jessica reminded her, because usually she was the one getting set straight on things. Not because it mattered.

"Right. Sorry. I-I do want to... look, why don't you move down here? You can live in the apartment with me. I'm sure it'll be fine with Brianne. It's just for students officially, but they never check."

Jessica felt a bit of vertigo at the thought of leaving New York, and not even for a city, for a goddamn suburb, for a colony of college girls.

"Think about it, Jess. It'd be fun. And we could spend some time with some of my friends." Trish's voice took on a chiding edge. "They still don't know you very well."

"You mean they don't like me."

"That's not..."

"Yeah. That's not what they _say._ "

"Please don't be like this, Jess." There was a wobble in her voice; Trish was close to tears. "Can we just... be here together?"

Jessica sighed. "What do you think, Trish?"

Trish swallowed a few times, blinking back tears, and Jessica took her hand. Trish wove her fingers between Jessica's and squeezed, drawing deep breaths until he face was steady.

"I guess I was being unrealistic," she said. "I knew you wouldn't want to move down here. But I just... I need to do this, okay?"

Jessica nodded. She felt drained.

"It doesn't have to be different. You can keep visiting."

"I will," said Jessica. It was already different, of course, but that wasn't new. Jessica didn't know when that had started.

The last trip Jessica made was on a Sunday, because one of the other waitresses was really low-key about trading shifts whenever Jessica asked her to, and Trish was starting at ReliefAct the next day. The woman next to Jessica on the train was talking on a cell phone, and Jessica wished, briefly but sincerely, that she had one too.

 _The train's running late, Trish. There are track problems. I'm not going to make it on time._

She stared out the window and waited, watching the now-familiar scenery flick by.

As soon as the train pulled up to the platform in Philadelphia, squealing and stinking, Jessica leapt out of her seat and bolted into the terminal. The local train out to Bryn Mawr was late sometimes. She crossed her fingers, as if she were a kid again, and kept them crossed until she got to the monitors that reported the train arrivals and departures in real time.

Shit.

There was a bank of pay phones only a few feet away from the monitors; the one on the end was broken, Jessica knew, but the other two were both free. She dug up a quarter and dialed.

"Hey Trish, it's me," she said, before Trish had even spoken. "I missed the train, I'm sorry, the Jersey train came in late, and I ran but…."

"Jess, calm down, calm down! It's okay!"

"It's not," said Jessica. She was nearly crying. "The next train isn't until like 4:30, and we've only got until tomorrow morning." She pulled at her hair with her free hand, cursing the late train, cursing her stupid self for not finding a better way to do this.

"Jess, don't worry about it, there's a train into the city in ten minutes, and it's an express. If I hurry, I can catch it."

Jessica sniffed. "Okay."

"Okay. I'm running. Bye!"

After a few minutes Jessica's breath came back to normal. She placed the phone receiver gently back in its cradle. It was going to be fine. She hadn't ruined it. Trish was coming. Jessica would see her in — she checked the monitors — twenty eight minutes. She bought herself a pretzel and sat down on a terminal bench to wait.

Life was better with pretzels, even crappy train station pretzels that weren't as good as the ones you could buy in New York. Licking the salt off of her fingers, she thought about New York — which had more trains and better pretzels, not to mention better almost-everything-else, except maybe pink flowers — and wondered why she always seemed to come undone, every damn time she came down here.

Twenty minutes later, Trish came hurrying down the platform stairs into the terminal, and Jessica jumped to her feet to hug her.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and "don't worry about it, it's nothing," Trish said, and hugging Trish felt like the only solid thing in the entire world, and Jessica realized as they stood there hugging in the middle of the train station that all of the fight had gone out of her. The thing she had been fighting, or fighting for — whichever it was, maybe both at once — was done.

Jessica let go of Trish and looked at her, drinking her in, her golden hair and her bright eyes and the face that should have been too perfect. Trish looked back, quizzical, and after a moment she dropped her eyes.

"There's a smoothie place in the Amtrak terminal," Trish said, talking a little too fast. "We've got about twenty minutes, we can…"

"I know, I pass it every time I come down here." Jessica pulled her back to the bench. "Can we just sit here?"

"Okay." Trish's nervous energy seemed to collapse along with her plan. She nodded, small and tentative, and perched on the edge of the bench.

Jessica swallowed. Next to her, Trish was staring at the floor.

"Trish…."

Trish closed her eyes like she was in pain. Jessica reached over and took her hand, and Trish turned to her, eyes bright and sad.

"Trish, I can't… I can't make this trip any more."

Trish pulled her hand away and drew her knees up until she was curled into a ball on the bench, then uncurled again and clasped her hands in front of herself, almost violently. She stared wretchedly down at her hands, then gave a tiny nod. "I know."

"I mean, it's…" Jessica grasped for words. And that was hard, because she didn't even know what the hell she was saying, but it was either talk or just sit there and think about the fact that Trish hadn't pushed.

"It's okay." Trish's voice was steady but very small as she reached over and took Jessica's hand again. "It's…. I don't think it was fair of me, to make you."

"You didn't make me."

Trish shrugged, hunching up even smaller.

"You love it here," Jessica said.

"Yeah, I do." Trish swallowed hard, like she was trying not to cry. "I'll be honest, though— I love it a little less when you're around. It's not… it's like the pieces don't fit together quite right."

Trish didn't sound angry about it — not even a little angry, only sad — but there didn't seem to be any getting away from the fact that Jessica was a colossal fuck-up. But Trish knew that, it wasn't like it was news to anyone. Trish did know, and she had never pulled away. Jessica felt her anger burn out as quickly as it had come.

"I guess I could have tried harder to fit in," Jessica said, carefully. "Be, like, supportive or whatever. Make nice to your friends like I was supposed to."

Trish laughed sadly. "You never do what's supposed to happen."

Well, she wasn't wrong. "That's me," Jessica said. "But um, we'll…. We'll still talk on the phone, right?"

Trish stared at her like she was crazy. "Of course. As often as possible. And Jess, will you let me buy you a phone line?" She put up a hand. "Before you say anything, it's going to cost less than your train fare down here. So if you're not…" Trish's expression wavered, and she ducked her head.

Jessica touched her shoulder, cautiously, and Trish collapsed in tears, sobbing into her folded arms. She wasn't pushing Jessica away, so Jessica draped herself over Trish's shoulders and hugged her, almost as tightly as she wanted to.

"You can pay for my phone line," Jessica said, when Trish had sat back up. Trish laughed a little bit, so Jessica laughed too, and they sat together in silence.

"So I guess we have to figure out a new way to, to…." Trish trailed off, hand threshing the air as she searched for the end of her sentence.

Jessica kissed her: took hold of her face and pulled her in close and kissed her passionately, fingers curling into Trish's hair, thumb stroking her cheek. Trish's arms tightened around Jessica's shoulders, and Jessica could feel Trish's tears wet on her own cheek. She broke the kiss and tipped their foreheads together.

"We'll figure it out," she said softly.

Trish smiled at her — that beautiful, incandescent smile that looked like her TV smile, but was somehow completely different and just for Jessica — and Jessica smiled back, because she always had to.

"We'll be okay," she said. "Somehow."

Trish nodded. "I know."

"And hey." Jessica looked at Trish solemnly. "No matter what else happens, no matter what goes wrong…"

Trish looked back, waiting.

"…There will always be someone at Bryn Mawr who wants to fuck you." She kept her mouth solemn, but she was pretty sure the rest of her face gave it away.

Trish closed her eyes, laughing. "Oh my god, Jess."

"I'm serious! I mean, personally speaking, I hope you don't go looking, like, tonight, but if you _wanted_ to…."

Trish shook her head, still laughing. "Good to know, thanks," she managed.

"Hey, I will always tell you the truth," said Jessica. "And the truth is that Alexis definitely has the hots for you."

Trish scoffed and smacked her on the arm. "Get out."

"Hey, you better watch it," Jessica said. "I can hit pretty hard."

Trish's laughter died back into a quiet smile. "I know you can," she said softly.

Jessica used the long silence to build up her courage to ask the really scary question. "You'll come back to New York, right?"

Trish nodded, staring out in front of her. "Of course I will. I just… I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now."

That phrase again. Jessica still couldn't argue.

"Oh, shit, before I forget." She dug in her pocket and pulled out her ticket to Bryn Mawr. "I paid for this already. Well, you paid."

Trish huffed out a tiny laugh, eyes closed. "I guess I did."

"It's just… tomorrow is your first day. You probably, like, want to prepare or something."

"Yeah." Trish took the ticket and tucked it in her pocket. "I guess I should go up there soon if I want to catch the next train. Do you need money for the ticket back to New York?"

"Don't worry, I've got this one."

Jessica walked with Trish to the foot of the stairwell leading up to the train tracks. "So I guess I'll see you… sometime soon." Trish's brow furrowed. "Right?"

Jessica smiled, ruthlessly quashing the voice inside that said _not soon enough._ "You will. And hey, good luck tomorrow."

Trish bit her lip and then gave Jessica one final, fierce hug. "Take care of yourself, Jess," she said. "I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Of course." Jessica gave one last squeeze and let her go. "Now go save the world."


End file.
